3 Ways Dean Winchester Didn't Come Back From Hell
by Rosa Lui
Summary: Demon AU. Dean knew not to trust it even before it walked close, tilted its head at him bird-like, and eyes turning black as the Pit said, "My name is Castiel."


******A/N: **I dedicate this to **Audrey**, **Hina88**, and **Questofdreams**, whose collective fault it is that I've become a Supernatural fan. This was written in a single spur-of-the-moment 2 AM - 7 AM writing session.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. :3

* * *

**1**

* * *

He – _it_ – walked into the barn and brought the darkness with it. The lights flickered seconds before the bulbs blew in a shower of sparks, and there was a thunder storm outside that hadn't been there before, as if come to be the creature's own calling card.

There was just enough light for the humanoid form to stand silhouetted in the door, just enough light for Dean to think _Slight_ and _Normal_ before his knife was buried up to the hilt in its chest.

Then Bobby was down for the count with the knife lying useless beside him, and Dean couldn't think of anything but, "Who are you?"

He knew not to trust it, knew better than to trust anyone except for himself and Sammy and the man lying passed out on the floor.

He knew not to trust it even before it walked close, tilted its head at him bird-like, and eyes turning black as the Pit answered, "My name is Castiel."

No black smoke poured from its mouth no matter how much Latin Dean read. It stood unmovingly in the Devil's Trap, hair windswept and tie askew. The storm ripped shingles off the roof overhead and in the brief light, the shadows on the far wall framed it like outstretched wings, ragged and torn like those of a bird fallen fast and far.

"I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition," the black-eyed Demon told him.

"Give me one good reason I should believe you."

"Because the Angels are coming, Dean," it said. "And Heaven is not to be trusted."

Dean didn't believe in Angels, and said so.

"You should," and this time an unnatural smirk twitched at its lips. "I used to be one of them."

* * *

Dean knew what had happened the last time an Angel was cast out of Heaven. But _this_ couldn't be the second coming of Lucifer, not taken the form of an unholy tax accountant.

* * *

Sam didn't trust Castiel, which was fine since Castiel didn't trust Ruby.

"She's one of Lucifer's," it growled, pacing the outer edge of the hotel room. Blue eyes wide with exasperation were locked on her. "She's leading you straight to your doom and you're too stupid to see it."

"Yeah Dean," Sam said loudly, an undercurrent of cruelty in his testiness that never used to be there. "I'd have to be _pretty stupid_ to team up with a Demon, wouldn't I? It would be _dangerously idiotic_ for me to trust them without a single shred of proof about their allegiances."

Castiel said nothing, stepping across salt likes as if they weren't there and inspecting the protective runes on the window panes like a master looking at a finger painting. The loose belt of his trench coat trailed like the tail of a lost duckling.

"Don't accuse me of alliances with Hell, you little bitch," said Ruby, beautiful face tight with anger. "I've spent the last few months risking myself for Sam –"

"-So that you would have him right where you need him," Castiel replied, walking closer. "But we have bigger problems than the Devil right now."

Dean should have been able to feel breath on his skin at that distance. He couldn't.

Ruby took one step back. "I know what they do to bad little boys down there, you know," she said, and the walls seemed to close in around them. "How long did you last, with rusted hooks tearing through your Grace until you licked their boots and swore to work for them? You would have broken _screaming_ centuries ago while your Daddy didn't give a _shit_."

Castiel turned away, head upturned for a fraction of a second in a gesture that could have been an eye-roll, or a glance toward –

No one walked out of Hell virtuous or unchanged.

Dean knew all too well where the lines were drawn, and what lay on either side. On one was pain, and the other, the taste of blood in your mouth and a smile on your face as you took a knife in hand to flay away another's skin and your own soul.

He didn't doubt that this _thing _had crossed that line long ago.

But he also knew that he'd never seen a Demon look up to the sky like it was instinct, and it was just hurting for divine salvation.

* * *

When it came down to it, he needed Castiel to not be lying. Because if he had found salvation, maybe Dean could find it too.

* * *

Dean's brother was banging a servant of the Devil and his skin hurt where Castiel's palm marks were burned into it, so he drove to the nearest diner and ordered one of everything.

The booths were old and scratched, the chequered formica tables peeling. The air conditioner blew in too cold overhead, and the food was stale.

Nothing had ever felt or tasted so good.

And nothing had ever looked so ridiculous as the trench coat clad form sitting across from him, looking too normal and too out of place all at once.

There was silence. Then, "You're not a man of faith, but I believed in God. Much like you believe in your brother, whatever I… became in the Lake of Fire, even now I still have my loyalties, whatever you may think of them."

"Sorry," said Dean. "I can't hear you over the sound of this pie."

"I used to be part of the garrison," Castiel said suddenly. His gaze was fixed somewhere over Dean's right shoulder, staring at nothing. "For millennia I believed in the will of Heaven. I believed the word of my Father to be infallible."

The response was a grin full of cherry filling and crust crumbles, accompanied by a lively middle finger.

"All it takes is a moment in the wrong place at the wrong time," the Demon continued after a moment. "And one foolish, faith-blinded Angel to take the news to his superiors, expecting them in their wrath to rain divine justice upon the heads to the evil-doers." He paused, eyes sliding back to meet Dean's. They were black again. Dean wondered if he knew. "Instead, they ripped off my wings and threw me to long-clawed Hell beasts."

The sound of Dean's fork clattering against his plate startled them both. "So what, now you want revenge, you poor sonuvabitch?" Dean tried, knowing his voice was shaking. "Decided to help the other Demons in their plot to raise frigging _Lucifer_?"

That got a sarcastic smile. "It's not _their_ plot, Dean. They only think it is. You and your brother are puppets on a string and the archangels want to watch you dance."

"Sorry if I have a hard time imagining even a _hypothetical _Heaven aiding Lucifer, okay?"

Castiel breathed an incredulous laugh, one eyebrow raised sharply. "That's what I thought once as well. I've paid the price for my naiveté. We – _they_ are not harp-playing cherubs, Dean Winchester. They are soldiers and were built to follow orders."

"Whatever," said Dean, draining his beer. "I still don't believe in them."

* * *

The Angels finally showed up three days later. They were kind of dicks.

* * *

Anna looked at Castiel like the sight of him hurt her, and he froze before his eyes flickered down and away, shoulders hunched in shame.

"At ease, soldier," she said in a voice that meant a thousand other things. As if approaching a wounded animal, she reached a hand out to cup his cheek.

He flinched away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Don't – I wasn't strong enough to resist, and I know how this has to end. But please, I need to see this through."

The Angel just looked at him, eyes deep and sad.

Dean shifted; Sam held him back with a hand.

"I'm not asking this for me," Castiel said, finally as if with great effort turning his head to face her. "I know that I've become an abomination. I only beg that you let me help them, as much as I can before I d-mmf."

And then he couldn't say much of anything at all, because Anna was hugging him, fierce and tight, breathing steady but eyes wet.

"You shouldn't taint yourself," Castiel said, trying and failing to detangle their limbs.

"I've never been prouder," she whispered.

* * *

Sometimes, Castiel's eyes went black. Sometimes he smiled a little too sly and spoke too bitingly, or came back from a fight covered in blood from head to toe and grinning, high on it.

Sometimes Dean felt himself teetering on the edge of that same precipice, fingers twitching restlessly at his cuffs when he heard screams of pain, or sunk into a corner with a bottle of something foul and drank until he couldn't stand.

Bobby still called them idjits.

Team Free Will made it work.

* * *

**2**

* * *

Bobby kept him for three weeks before finally letting him go.

It wasn't his fault – he was justifiably suspicious, at first. Then he was venting, furious because was nothing sacred and how _dare_ they, _how dare they_?

The second week was where doubt set in, and the third was the time it took to heal.

Dean didn't blame him. If he'd shown up on his own doorstep with black eyes and an aversion to holy water, he'd have tried to kill himself too.

* * *

The process nearly repeated itself a few days later, in the doorway of a seedy motel room. Salt burning his eyes and skin of his throat sizzling under the edge of a silver knife, Dean gritted his teeth so Sam wouldn't have to hear his brother's voice screaming.

It was over within an hour, thanks to Bobby's intervention.

Sam stormed out and didn't come back until the next morning.

When he finally did he refused to make eye contact. Or let Dean drive. Or listen to him about the demon blood thing. Or talk to him at all.

Once Dean tried to put on one of his mix tapes, and Sam pulled the Impala over just so he could wrap his hands around the neck of the thing he thought was impersonating his brother.

For all Dean knew, he might be right. He hadn't felt much of anything, lately.

* * *

The bright side was, he got Ruby now. He trusted her.

* * *

The down side was, that turned out to be really fucking ironic.

* * *

Which started the entire process over again as Sam, enraged and positive he'd been tricked, tried to stab his brother through the chest.

It ended with the word, "Sammy." As in, "Sammy, hey, Sammy, kiddo, remember – remember when –" and them both in tears, tears Dean didn't even know he had any more.

* * *

Dean-the-Demon didn't flinch in Zachariah's face any more than Dean-the-human had flinched in anyone else's.

Zachariah didn't want him for anything – he was contaminated and unusable, apparently, though for what he didn't specify – except to take out his anger on.

Dean wondered sometimes about the pale, wide-eyed helper that followed Zachariah around like he'd been whipped into obedience.

Especially after he'd leaned over one time and, blue eyes dull, whispered, "_I was too late. I'm so sorry, Dean."_

He was a weird little nerd Angel, that was for sure.

* * *

Nerd Angel apparently kicked ass sometimes though, as the Winchesters realized after Zachariah was dead and Lucifer had fucked off.

* * *

The Winchester name was a bit mud in the hunter community now, what with the whole one-started-the-Apocalypse-and-the-other-one's-a-Demon thing.

It was fine, though, because any time anyone got too vocal about it Bobby made a few calls and sent them off on an emergency run to find a lost artifact in the sewers.

* * *

Because fuck destiny, essentially.

* * *

**3**

* * *

The man standing in the middle of the room wasn't real.

"This is a dream, Dean," he'd said, and Dean believed him. Believed him when he claimed not to be a man at all.

"I'm an Angel," the man said, expression calm and smile soft. "But dedicated to crafting my own destiny, just like you."

Because there had been other Angels in Dean's dreams lately – pushing, shoving, shouting, trying to get into his head.

One, the Angel who shone so brightly he'd burned out Pamela's eyes, had appeared glorious and radiant, but burned hot and angry.

Dean had asked the man if that had been the Devil, but the man had just laughed.

"The Devil doesn't exist," he'd replied. And Dean had been convinced of that, too.

* * *

**I adore feedback. :3**


End file.
